An angel’s life

There I was, enjoying finding me feet (or wings) in Second Life …. making new friends … learning who and where to avoid.

One evening I got an Instant Message (IM) from a Ms J Babii, who said she had seen me at church and, when I checked, sure enough was a member of a couple of Christian groups I was in. She invited me to TP to her location, which turned out to be a rather raunchy looking studio flat … belonging, she said, to a friend of hers. We chatted about church … about being a Christian in RL and SL … and, all the time, she kept popping in and out to ‘check something’. Then the conversation took a turn for the more uncomfortable, as she shared that she had found herself led into temptations in SL that she should not be partaking in … to cut the story short, I politely declined her ‘invitation’ at which point she took great offense and told me to take FLIGHT. I was catapulted to the skies, and seemed to be having a fit, from which I could not recover, nor could I TP to any of my landmarks. I was already flustered, but by now I was just plain freaked! I couldn’t even log out and in the end my counterpart had to turn the computer off.

I must have sat for about half an hour, calming myself, before plucking up the courage to go back in. To my delight and surprise I was back at the place I’d happily been exploring before the awful experience I’d just been subjected to! Unsure as to whether or not she had control over my movements in some way, I thought about how to proceed … and, just at that moment, Sonic came in-world. I sought him out and explained what had happened … and was relieved, though horrified, to learn that I was not the only one in the group to have been subjected to similar abuses. Feeling reassured, I raised a prayer for the disturbed individual, and IM’d some Scripture verses (not surprisingly she was offline!). But angered that she was preying on people in such a way, I filled out a complaint form to Linden Labs.

Weeks later I received email to say that the matter had been dealt with, but with no indication as to any action that was taken. Imagine my shock when, just days later, I was sitting in church, and she TP’d in and sat in another area of the church! Tempted though I was to TP out of there, I sat tight and was relieved that she left the moment the service was over. A very strange, lost individual, methinks.

There is a saying -

Thorns and stings
And those such things
Just make stronger
Our angel wings.

I have always believed that the difficult things we face in life, whether that be RL or SL, are there for a reason, and are often a test of one’s inner self and motives. Oft times angels face difficulties, and can even be faced with a head on fight with evil. Unfortunately evil happily uses and abuses those who are weak in resolve and / or spirit to carry out evil deeds. Victim and abuser are both left traumatised. I have been blessed with true friendship and fellowship in SL, and that is what I held onto throughout and especially in the aftermath of the experience with Ms Babii. It is my hope and prayer that the inner Light of God which sustains me shone throughout, and continues to do so, and that it is no longer an angel form that is seen, but the Light and Love of our Heavenly Father.